Editor's note:
For our second installment of this year's Big Idea series, we put together a
list of some of the most exciting ideas that help the environment. We also encourage
you to submit your own idea and argue for why it deserves recognition. At the
end of the series, we'll publish the best selections and spotlight the winner.

Garden greens:
Lawns you can eat
Fritz Haeg is unleashing a one-man attack on the American lawn, which the Los
Angeles-based artist dubs a "carpet of conformity." Over the next
three years, under the aegis of Edible
Estates, which has already begun in Salina, Kansas, Haeg will be ripping
up the front lawns of nine single-family homes in regions across the country
and replacing them with food-producing vegetable gardens. The families whose
lawns he's transforming have agreed to maintain the gardens, so the work is
a permanent living installation. What's wrong with the lawn? Not only does it
take a tremendous amount of water to keep it green, but the two-stroke engine
used by lawnmowers produces some of the worst carbon-dioxide emissions for a
motor of its size, contributing to global warming and other air pollution. Then
there are all the pesticides and herbicides used to keep front lawns green.
"We're stuck with this idea that plants that produce food are ugly, and
lawns that you have to pour chemicals on and mow are beautiful," says Haeg,
who hopes his lawns can reverse that thinking.